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It is always nerve-racking coming into a new company and trying to break the ice. Ensuring that new employees feel comfortable is crucial to building a positive transition within a company. We thought it would be fun to ask Patrick a few questions to get to know him a little better.

Q: What is your official work title?

A: Systems Support Specialist

Q: Can you tell us more about your professional experience/history?

A: My professional experience has been mostly in luxury retail, most notably Louis Vuitton and Porsche Design.

Q: What do you like to do outside of work?

A: TINKER!! I love building things from e-waste and spare parts/broken things. I also play guitar and want to automate the world!

Q: What is your greatest travel experience?

A: My junior year at university, my class on Philosophical Aesthetics went to Manhattan and stayed in the university loft for a week. The whole trip was dedicated to seeing great art and eating great food with great people.

Q: Favorite movie?

A: The Fall/Heavyweights

Q: Guilty pleasure music artist?

A: Should I feel guilty for liking the Grateful Dead? Yes, yes I should. Do I? Yeah . . .

Q: What is something that inspires you?

A: New artifacts, that is, anytime I encounter an object wherein the design value is nearly tantamount to the objects’ functional value, I am in love and feel inspired!

Q: What would you say your professional goal would be now that you are employed at Percipia?

A: I hope to be able to keep Percipia in the vanguard of telephony solutions by learning the platform needs while exploring novel approaches to handling those needs.

There are over 10 major telephony systems within the hospitality industry, with over 50 property management systems worldwide; how do you offer a solution that allows for seamless integration between all systems?

With Percipia, you can integrate your phone system to your property management system (PMS), allowing for increased functionality your guests can benefit from. Go above and beyond and offer your guests the white-glove experience they deserve.

Guest Information

Secondary Check-in/out

Set Automated & VIP Wake-up Calls

Set and Override Do-Not-Disturb

Room Move & Swap

911 Emergency Features

Caller ID

DID Assignment

Housekeeping Room Status Updates

PBX, PMS and VM’s Status Indicators

Housekeeping Status Report

Check-in/out Report

Mini-bar Report

Does your property allow guest to initiate a work order through HotSOS? Can you seamlessly display an itinerary built with ALICE concierge on your guest device? What about digitally order room service via a mobile application and send it to the hotel kitchen for processing with instant POS billing?

Percipia’s Parallax integration engine not only ties various telephony systems to any major PMS, but Parallax also interfaces to Concierge, Workflow Automation, Valet, Spa, Fitness, Point-of-Sale systems.

No matter the hotel brand, casino size or resort location, guests deserve the highest level of hospitable experience. Do you offer a seamless experience for your guests and staff?

When you get Frequency and Parallax,
you’re in good hands.

Percipia offers 24/7/365 support through our Annual Maintenance Contract. You can rest assured that Percipia has your back all year long, even on holidays!

Frequency PBX: Reliable, Scalable, Cost-Effective

These are the key characteristics your telephony system should have. With hospitality in mind, Frequency PBX was designed with Parallax hospitality gateway and Precision VoiceMail built-in. Not only will Frequency PBX control your guest room extensions, but it also powers all administrative phones to share information like guest caller ID and automatic wake-up calls.

I have quite a few IT Directors expressing their ideas to move away from guest room phones. My main question is “are you spending a lot of time managing the handsets?”. The answer is typically no. Once the handset is configured and placed it’s basically a “set it and forget it” device. These phones are built to take a beating and have a long life, so the question remains – Why the push to remove the phones?

Nightstand Clutter Frustrating your Guests.

With most hotels modernizing rooms to accommodate new technologies, the big nightstand is quickly shrinking. Hotels are investing in solving the dilemma of the BYOD (bring your own device) era. The smartphone was a game changer in so many ways including the hotel nightstand. Once a cluttered space filled with a clock radio, pen and paper, tent card, menus, and a phone book – designers focused on minimally-designed all-in-one devices.

Reinvention Starts with Demand

While you may not place your cell phone and devices on your nightstand at home, the traveler will. Guests want to reach over after sleeping or relaxing and check their devices. The average guest travels with 3 smart devices and they need to conveniently recharge. The hospitality phone manufacturers met these demands with a smaller footprint, USB ports, and built-in clocks. And it’s working out to their favor. Instead of competing with the smart device, simply support it.

Calls to the Front Desk remain Consistent

The top reason a guest uses the hotel room phone is to quickly call the Front Desk. “What’s the WiFi password?”, “What time is Check out?”, and local information remains the top reasons a guest will use the phone.

Don’t Forget about Kari’s 911 Law

In February 2018, Kari’s Law Act was signed into law. The bill was an amendment to the Communications Act of 1934 that prohibits manufacturers from distributing a multi-line phone unless it is pre-configured with a direct dial to 911 without dialing the trunk prefix to obtain an outside line such as “9”.

Back to Basics for the Hotel Room Phone

While many hotels are exploring new ways to communicate with guests, incorporating Alexa, Google Assistant, and mobile applications with text messaging – the phone manufacturers moved back to basics. They no longer attempt to compete with smart devices. The phone at least for now is here to stay, primarily for 911 emergencies, convenience, and providing the quickest access the hotel services.

In the past couple of years, smart devices have taken over as the hot new tech. A smart device is categorized as an electronic device that utilizes different wireless protocols (Bluetooth, NFC, WiFi, or cellular) to operate interactively and autonomously. Such devices include smartphones, smart cars, smart thermostats, smart doorbells, smart locks, smart refrigerators, tablets, smartwatches, and most prominently; smart speakers.

According to a study byAdobe Analytics, 32% of consumers reported owning a smart speaker in August of 2018, up from 28% in January. Growth is considerable, given that almost all of the smart speaker sales occur in Q4 (Adobe Analytics CES Report, Jan 2018). If this ownership growth trend continues at the pace Adobe suggests, more than half of U.S. consumers own a smart speaker by the beginning of this year.

The voice-activated devices have changed the way that we make technology work for us. These devices allow us to spend less time in front of screens, and as more integrations/use cases are found for these devices, they are going to become more common for everyday usage.

Although we have yet to really find a “killer app” for these smart devices, the hospitality industry has a lot to offer through their usage. In an increasingly voice-activated world, what changes can we expect for the hotel industry?

Travelers can utilize the features provided by these devices to book a car rental, check the weather and traffic conditions, and even book flights. Guests can order room service or call for housekeeping. They can adjust their thermostat, or turn off the lights, and even open their blinds when the sun comes out. All of these features are to be expected in an increasingly connected and voice-activated world.

However, some guests aren’t as excited about these changes. Privacy is, of course, the biggest concern. While these devices do not have the capability to record your every conversation, the fact that they are voice-activated means that there is the potential for them to activate accidentally and transmit private conversations, as was the case for anOregon couple back in May of 2018. Although instances like this are extremely rare, some would rather avoid the risk entirely.

There will be pushback against smart speakers just like there was against online shopping, smartphones, and iPods. As technology advances, so does the way we interact with it. Thanks to advances in natural language processing, what once was science-fiction is now a reality. Smart speakers and integrated technologies are the future of automation. As gimmicky as Alexa or Google Home may seem, their technologies show that the future will be voice-activated.

Percipia and Nomadix transform your guest WiFi into a revenue-generating opportunity. What better place than a splash page to showcase your property amenities, and special events to boost your sales.

Celebrating 20 successful years, Nomadix offers a high-performance Public Access Gateway. Setup your Access Gateway to integrate with your PMS allowing a simple login for your guests. Why not create a room number and last name as a login and password– a password they won’t forget, and frustration they won’t experience. With Tiered Billing Features, offer faster speeds for a price as an additional revenue generator, or provide your guests with free high-speed as a perk or comp!

It’s vital to have full control of your Guest Wifi traffic – and that’s why the Nomadix gateway is key:

Sync Guest Logins with your PMS for easy access

Control access level bandwidth from Basic to VIP Conference rooms

Apply fee base bandwidth upgrades

Parental controls with content filters

Block Illegal downloads, and malicious sites

Tight hacking control (20 years in business and virus free)

Block Wifi drive-by access and bandwidth hogging

Designed for scalability and renowned for its reliability. The Nomadix is built for hotels, meeting rooms and convention centers. The AG 5900 features flexibility to support 500 to 8,000 simultaneous devices – with a 3.5 gigabit per second throughput – just think of the possibilities.

Call now for additional information or an estimate and take back the control and security your guests deserve.

TribalNet 2018 has always been a successful conference for Percipia and this year wasn’t any different. This year’s conference was hosted in the city of Las Vegas at the Hard Rock Hotel and Conference Center. As the Percipia team checked into their reservations, they were greeted by iconic outfits worn by David Bowie, Mick Jagger and Lady Gaga.

After being starry-eyed by celebrity fashion pieces, the team made their way to the conference center were they met familiar faces, new clients, and new industry friends.

Exhibiting at TribalNet each year allows us to connect and educate our Percipia friends and family about telephony and mobility trends we see for the following year and this year wasn’t any different. As we develop new features, Latitude in-room application was a hit!

“…Solution providers and vendors work with TribalNet to create solid partnerships within the tribal market by becoming further educated on how to best service this one-of-a-kind market.” –http://www.tribalhub.com

Percipia is proud to be an active member of TribalNet for over seven years. We have over 20 clients within the Tribal gaming and hospitality space and are always looking for new clients to expand our ever-growing community.

It is always nerve-racking coming into a new company and trying to break the ice. Ensuring that new employees feel comfortable is crucial to building a positive transition within a company. We thought it would be fun to ask Rob a few questions to get to know him a little better.

Q: What is your official work title?

A: Systems Support Specialist.

Q: Can you tell us more about your professional experience/history?

A: My experience in technical support ranges from freelance work for home computers and networks to help desk support for a college campus of over 10,000 students and faculty. I have been interested in the field of IT for as long as I can remember.

Q: What do you like to do outside of work?

A: Besides spending time with family and friends, I really enjoy learning and creating new things. I’ve been working on producing electronic music and creating 3D animations in Blender/Cinema 4D.

Q: What is your greatest travel experience?

A: I visited Kentucky during the “Great American Solar Eclipse” (August 2017) to view it in the path of totality. Although it only lasted a little over two minutes, that experience was fascinating.

Q: Favorite movie?

A: I’m going to say Hot Fuzz. Edgar Wright is a fantastic director.

Q: Guilty pleasure music artist?

A: Linkin Park.

Q: What is something that inspires you?

A: The Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) movement. The collaborative approach to software development is really inspirational.

Q: What would you say your professional goal would be now that you are employed at Percipia?

A: My goals are to learn and master the different technologies that we work with. I want to continue the trend of providing excellent customer support service and improve our support in any way that I can.